Digital Commons Network^™

Machine Learning Land Cover And Land Use Classification Of 4-Band Satellite Imagery, Lorelei Turner, Torrey J. Wagner, Paul Auclair, Brent T. Langhals

Faculty Publications

Land-cover and land-use classification generates categories of terrestrial features, such as water or trees, which can be used to track how land is used. This work applies classical, ensemble and neural network machine learning algorithms to a multispectral remote sensing dataset containing 405,000 28x28 pixel image patches in 4 electromagnetic frequency bands. For each algorithm, model metrics and prediction execution time were evaluated, resulting in two families of models; fast and precise. The prediction time for an 81,000-patch group of predictions wasmodels, and >5s for the precise models, and there was not a significant change in prediction time when a …

Effect Of Trigonometric Transformations On The Machine Learning Prediction And Quality Control Of Air Temperature, Andrea Fenoglio, Torrey J. Wagner, Paul Auclair, Brent T. Langhals

Faculty Publications

Conducting effective quality control of weather observations in real time is vital to the 14th Weather Squadron’s mission of providing authoritative climate data. This study explored automated quality control of weather observations by applying multiple machine learning techniques to 43,487 surface weather observations from 5 years of data at a single location. Temperature predictors were evaluated using recursive feature elimination on linear regression and XGBoost algorithms, as well as using a neural network hyperparameter sweep. Modeling was repeated after calculating trigonometric transforms of temporal variables to give the models insight into the diurnal heating cycle of the Earth. All models …

Credibility In Empirical Legal Analysis, Hillel J. Bavli

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Empirical analysis is central in both legal scholarship and litigation, but it is not credible. Researchers can manipulate data to arrive at any conclusion they wish to obtain. A practice known as data fishing—searching for and selectively reporting methods and results that are favorable to the researcher—entirely invalidates a study’s results by giving rise to false positives and false impressions. Nevertheless, it is prevalent in law, leading to false claims, incorrect verdicts, and destructive policy. In this article, I examine the harm that data fishing in empirical legal research causes. I then build on methods in the sciences to develop …

Emerging Technology’S Language Wars: Smart Contracts, Carla L. Reyes

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Work at the intersection of blockchain technology and law represents a highly interdisciplinary area of inquiry. Often, researchers, law-makers, lawyers, and other stakeholders unnecessarily debate issues because of linguistic misunderstandings. As the third of four studies examining the impact of clashes of linguistic meaning on law and policy around emerging technologies, this Essay uses smart contracts as a case study to demonstrate the real legal harm that arises from a failure to communicate. Specifically, this Essay uses techniques from corpus linguistics to reveal the inherent value conflicts embedded in definitional differences and debates as to whether the law should “accommodate” …

U.S. International Tax Policy And Corporate America, Christopher H. Hanna, Cody A. Wilson

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Given the Republican-controlled House and narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, the Biden Administration has found itself in the perilous situation of needing to raise tax revenue while retaining the support of moderate Democrats. President Biden has proposed raising revenue by bringing the United States closer to a worldwide no deferral system and raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. These changes are unlikely to become law. Together, they simply do not have the support of moderate Democrats, Republicans, and, especially, Corporate America.

This Article aims to resolve the Biden Administration’s conundrum by proposing a worldwide …

No [Concrete] Harm, No Foul? Article Iii Standing In The Context Of Consumer Financial Protection, Annefloor J. De Groot

Georgia Law Review

In the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, the Court held that a bare procedural violation of a federal consumer protection statute is not enough to satisfy Article III’s standing requirement because the alleged injury is not sufficiently concrete. This decision resulted in a sizeable circuit split regarding standing under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, with some circuit courts interpreting the holding as narrowing the scope of standing for consumer protection claims, and others maintaining a broader interpretation, allowing plaintiffs to obtain redress for violations of consumer financial protections laws.

In its 2021 ruling in …

The Double-Side Of Deepfakes: Obstacles And Assets In The Fight Against Child Pornography, Abigail Olson

Georgia Law Review

Deepfake technology recently took the internet by storm. Although they can be used for both innocuous and nefarious purposes, deepfakes overwhelmingly depict people who appear to be creating nonconsensual pornography. The rise of deepfake technology must be accounted for in the existing federal legal framework, specifically in cases implicating images of children. While deepfakes’ malicious uses ought to be criminalized, exceptions should be made to use deepfake technology as a tool to enforce and deter purveyors of child pornography. This Note explores what the emerging legal framework addressing deepfakes should look like and considers the importance of using the “flipside” …

Steroid Receptor Coactivators – Their Role In Immunity, Yosi Gilad, David M Lonard, Bert W O'Malley

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Steroid Receptor Coactivators (SRCs) are essential regulators of transcription with a wide range of impact on human physiology and pathology. In immunology, SRCs play multiple roles; they are involved in the regulation of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB), macrophage (MΦ) activity, lymphoid cells proliferation, development and function, to name just a few. The three SRC family members, SRC-1, SRC-2 and SRC-3, can exert their immunological function either in an independent manner or act in synergy with each other. In certain biological contexts, one SRC family member can compensate for lack of activity of another member, while in other cases one SRC can …

Strategies To Mitigate The Effects Of Negative Political Rhetoric On Service Providers: A Study In Two Refugee-Serving Organizations, Maria V. Wathen, Charity N. Weishar, Patrick L.F. Decker

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper explores the strategies that staff at two refugee-serving organizations found helpful in mitigating their increased distress from negative political rhetoric aimed at their clients. Results point to the importance of organizational acknowledgement of the distress. Additionally, staff perceived that intentionally focused organizational interventions can mitigate the emotional impacts of negative rhetoric. Finally, strategies employees used to lessen their distress and regain a sense of efficacy included recommitment to the mission, advocacy for refugees among family and friends, strong reliance on religious faith in coping, and an avoidance of the rhetoric by decreasing engagement with news and social media.

A Mixed-Methods Protocol To Develop And Validate A Stewardship Maturity Matrix For Human Genomic Data In The Cloud, Vasiliki Rahimzadeh, Ge Peng, Mildred Cho

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

This article describes a mixed-methods protocol to develop and test the implementation of a stewardship maturity matrix (SMM) for repositories which govern access to human genomic data in the cloud. It is anticipated that the cloud will host most human genomic and related health datasets generated as part of publicly funded research in the coming years. However, repository managers lack practical tools for identifying what stewardship outcomes matter most to key stakeholders as well as how to track progress on their stewardship goals over time. In this article we describe a protocol that combines Delphi survey methods with SMM modeling …

Guided Tissue Regeneration In Peri-Radicular Surgery, G Baniulyte, L Burns, K Ali

Peninsula Dental School

Guided tissue regeneration techniques have been available in dentistry for decades. Primarily used for periodontal surgery and implant placement, their usefulness in periapical surgery has been getting increased attention. From the currently available evidence, guided tissue regeneration can improve patient outcomes. As a result, this technique might become more common in the future. Therefore, this review outlines the main uses of guided tissue regeneration and provides a brief summary of evidence surrounding it, with particular focus on periapical surgery.

A Phenotypic And Genomic Investigation Of The Identity And Variation In The European Dark Bee (Apis Mellifera Mellifera), Victoria G Buswell

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

Apis mellifera (the Western honey bee) is a predominantly human managed pollinator consisting of different evolutionary lineages each containing a number of subspecies. Apis mellifera is threatened by various factors for example, parasites, viruses and pesticide use. The native subspecies of the British Isles Apis mellifera mellifera is additionally threatened by introgression resulting from the importation of foreign subspecies perceived to have more desirable characteristics. This thesis investigates the integrity of Apis mellifera mellifera in the UK and how that can be assessed. Initially, introgression levels over time in a conservation program were assessed. This revealed temporal decreases in introgression, …

Investigating The Microbiota Associated With Maerl Beds Located In The Fal Estuary, Cornwall, Anthony Scales

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

The microbiota of maerl has the potential to contain diverse communities of bacteria which are thought to aid in maintaining maerl health and potentially be a driving factor in the settlement and development of ecological and economical important bi-valve species. However, little is currently known regarding the composition and structure of these communities, leading to uncertainty of their importance and their direct association to maerl beds. Using 16s amplicon sequencing analysis, the bacterial community composition associated with live and dead maerl (Phymatolithon calcareum) has been examined and compared to the communities associated with those of the surrounding environment - adjacent …

Unsupervised Multiview Embedding Of Node Embeddings, Jia Chen, Lizeth Figueroa, Dalia Orozco, Evangelos E. Papalexakis

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

—In this paper, we propose a comprehensive unsupervised framework that leverages existing and novel multiview learning models, towards obtaining a single node embedding from a collection of node embeddings, combining the best of all worlds. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that the proposed multiview node embedding is able to perform on par or better than the best of its constituents and provide reliable performance across downstream tasks including node classification and graph reconstruction

Math 2584c Elementary Differential Equations, Dennis Brewer

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Omgt 5443 Decision Models, Terry Bresnick

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Hemocytes Are Essential For Drosophila Melanogaster Post-Embryonic Development, Independent Of Control Of The Microbiota, Holly N. Stephenson, Robert Streeck, Florian Grüblinger, Christian Goosmann, Alf Herzig

Peninsula Medical School

ABSTRACT Proven roles for hemocytes (blood cells) have expanded beyond the control of infections in Drosophila. Despite this, the crucial role of hemocytes in post-embryonic development has long thought to be limited to control of microorganisms during metamorphosis. This has previously been shown by rescue of adult development in hemocyte-ablation models under germ-free conditions. Here, we show that hemocytes have an essential role in post-embryonic development beyond their ability to control the microbiota. Using a newly generated strong hemocyte-specific driver line for the GAL4/UAS system, we show that specific ablation of hemocytes is early pupal lethal, even under axenic conditions. …

The Genetic Diversity And Distribution Of Two Endangered Pit Vipers (Bothriechis Marchi And Cerrophidion Wilsoni) Within Cusuco National Park, Honduras, Debbie Starbuck

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

The current extinction rate is being increasingly recognised as an escalating issue, with observations still indicating that humans are the leading cause of a sixth mass extinction. Cloud forests in particular are home to a variety of threatened species, however, many of these forests are highly fragmented resulting in many species and populations existing in isolation. These forests have become centres of endemism for many species, leading to a high representation within global biodiversity hotspots and “irreplaceable” protected areas. This study primarily investigates the genetic diversity and distribution of two recently re-classified, sympatric pit vipers (Bothriechis marchi and Cerrophidion wilsoni) …

Synergistic Effects Of A Domestic (Thiacloprid Based) Neonicotinoid Pesticide And Nitrogen, Phosphorus And Potassium Fertiliser On Common Earthworms (Lumbricus Terrestris)., Tristan Holmes

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

Neonicotinoids are designed to target insect pests, but their extensive use and long persistence in soils mean that non-target soil organisms such as earthworms are likely to be chronically exposed to them. The common use of neonicotinoids in agricultural systems makes them highly likely to come into contact with other agro-chemicals that may give rise to synergistic effects. Chronic exposure of common earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris) to neonicotinoids in single or combined use with inorganic NPK fertiliser may pose problems that are not accounted for in most biological risk assessments under laboratory conditions. To assess the impacts of such chronic exposure …

Meeg 2303 Introduction To Materials, Wan Shou

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Hist 3063 Military History, Steven Rosales

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Hist 3303 U.S. Immigration History, Steven Rosales

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Ineg 3313 Engr Probability & Statistics, Caroline Beam

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Ineg 5443 Decision Models, Terry Bresnick

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Math 1203 College Algebra, Zachary Payton

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Math 2053 Finite Mathematics, Victoria Cruz

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Math 2564c Calculus Ii, Jeremy Van Horn - Morris

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Omgt 5003 Intro To Operations Mgmt, Caroline Beam

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Omgt 5003 Intro To Operations Mgmt, Kerry Melton

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Omgt 5463 Economic Decision Making, Leonard Nethercutt

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.